People shuffle their priorities, mentally taking some money away from one area and shunting it into another as their priorities change. They base their budget on their priorities in the first place, if you don’t mind me stating the obvious. That means that the impact of your sales presentation in highlighting the value of your product will recalibrate their budget as you proceed.

This has important implications. One is that you might be making a big mistake if you get the prospect to say how much they intend to spend on that budget area or type of product. Remember that when people verbally commit to something, it tends to fix them to it because they want to be consistent, and because they have set an anchor point. But if your presentation could make them increase it’s priority, wouldn’t you want it to be very easy for them to shift their priorities without the encumbrance of a commitment, the hob goblin of consistency, and that pesky anchor point?

Additionally, many industries involve seeing prospects who are really vague about their own finances. This is especially true for prospects who are making purchases that do not require much deliberation about their budget. It may be a matter of loosening their psychological grip on their credit card.

All of this is to make the point that you do not want to create an artificial barrier to sales by thinking of budgets and financial objections as being sacrosanct or fixed, because they aren’t. You are deploying your sales skills in a much more fluid situation, and so they must be relevant to that dynamic. This book is putting you into a very advantageous mindset for doing just that.

Your skills for focusing on desires (or criteria), and pain (or needs), while managing psychological dynamics like frames and automatic behavior are just what that fluid reality (people) responds to best.